Experts Ask Bush to Unify Strategy Against Terrorism

A panel of anti-terrorism experts recommended Thursday that President-elect George W. Bush develop a national plan for combating terrorism within his first year in office.

“The United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism,” said Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore, who heads the panel. “Instead, we have a loosely coupled set of broad policy documents, plans and specific programs.”

The national plan should give local law enforcement, fire departments and emergency medical services a major stake in planning and executing any new approach, the panel concluded in its second annual report, which was presented to Bush, President Clinton and Congress.

After bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, Congress established the advisory group in 1999 to assess domestic response capabilities to terrorism.

“A terrorist attack on some level inside our borders is inevitable, and the United States must be ready,” Gilmore said. “We are not, as some suggest, totally unprepared to meet the threat of terrorism in our own frontyard. But we can be better prepared.”

The panel also recommended that the White House create a national office to deter, prepare for and respond to international and domestic terrorism.

The office would do extensive budget reviews and “eliminate conflicts and unnecessary duplication among agencies,” the report said.

While the panel recommended better intelligence gathering about terrorism and increased sharing of that information among local law enforcement, Gilmore emphasized the need to protect the rights of Americans.

“Preservation of the Constitution and protection of our civil liberties must always come before what might be more efficient or expedient,” he said, adding that the military should never head a domestic terrorism investigation, instead lending support to a civilian agency in charge.

The distinctions between international and domestic terrorism are eroding, said the report, noting the World Trade Center bombing in New York City, the attacks against the embassies in East Africa and the recent strike in Yemen against the U.S. warship Cole.